Well, here we are. Christmas night. My family doesn't get together for Christmas, so it's been pretty quiet, as it usually is. I tend to have a hard time with the holidays. I had been feeling down about it for most of December, but yesterday and today were actually quite lovely.

My honey's kids came over for a couple of hours to do the present thing - which was great. They are 11,15 and 16. The oldest, Meredith, got her license recently. I met her when she was ten and now she has a car and drives! It's so cool. Usually they come over on the 26th. We really liked that they were able to come over on the actual day of Christmas this time, thanks to Meredith being able to drive them over.

The usual non-holiday situation is that the kids come home to our house on Wednesdays and on weekends, except for the first weekend of each month, which they spend at their mom's. The first few years were quite an adjustment for all of us, but we are all pretty comfortable now. They are great kids. I think my favorite thing about each of them is the same- they have great senses of humor!

Tomorrow I am going to buy a new sewing machine! I am not quite ready for one of the fancy pants machines, so I am just going to get whichever Singer is around 200 bucks. Even so, it will be an improvement over the Brother I have been using since tenth grade! I make it sound like I have been sewing the whole time since, but I haven't. My name is Melissa, and I am a sporadic sewer. Stitcher. Sewer just never looks right , does it?

Oh man, I can't believe I haven't told you about these awesome quilt tops I got at an estate sale recently. Two twin patchwork tops, $25!

Tee hee, I busted Thor looking silly with his tongue out.

Some of my favorite parts:

Love the coloring-book-style-slash-Peter-Maxx horsey. And that lettering!

And this cuteness:

It is so interesting to me that this giraffe print is on a textured fabric :

Here's another neat one, a flocked print:

Pink floral/butterfly with elephant cuteness:

Awesome, right? So I am thinking... I could take one of the twins and add some borders to it and make it queen sized for my bed....and I could take the other one and make some throw pillows and throw blankies... hmmmm. I'll keep you posted!

Hey, my next post will be my 100th! I am going to see what I can come up with to celebrate and thank you for being here with me. My next post will also fill you in on some backstory of how my big project came to be. And I am really hoping I get the official permission to go ahead and start shouting from the rooftops what I have been alluding to for lo these many months!